“Half” or “Double” (“Multiple”)?

(This is an article that I wrote originally in Japanese a long time ago when I was living in Japan. The English translation appears here. The original Japanese version is found above.)

I am one of the so-called “half-(something)” people. My exact equation is, ethnically-speaking, half-Japanese, half-Filipino (to be exact, 43.75% Filipino and 6.25% Chinese). Dad hails from Kyoto, Japan; mom comes from the central Philippine province of Iloilo. Through a mysteriously fascinating coordination of circumstances, two very different worlds and cultures encountered and joined together in love and what came out of it? Me and my siblings!

  When I was a boy in elementary school, at the beginning of the year when the teacher read out the attendance list for the first time, the following scenario usually unfolded when s/he came to my name.

“Sa – to…” “Sato?” (pretend that's my Japanese last name) “You’re not Filipino, are you?”

I remember having had to make some inevitable explanation such as “My dad’s Japanese” or “I’m half-Japanese” or even “I’m Japanese.”

From those experiences, it dawned on me little by little that I was more or less a bit different from other kids. On further reflection, I do remember feeling sometimes that I was Filipino. At other times though I felt I was not. In my own boyish way, I eventually had to confront myself with the existential question: Who really am I? Now I know that many “halfs” such as myself are faced with a similar identity crisis. This is a phenomenon that seems to be rooted in an ambguous sense that one is only “half,” that is, not a complete being.

For that reason, many ‘halfs’ search for their true roots in order to answer the above-mentioned existential dilemma about their identities. I myself went through something like this. At the end of my teen years, I left the land of my upbringing (the Philippines) to move to land of my father (Japan). During the years spent in Japan, I tried my best to plunge into the culture and it paid off because little by little and with much fascination, I gradually began to see myself also as Japanese.

To go back, however, to the sense that one is not a complete being, it is said nowadays in many quarters that the expression “half” is problematic. As mentioned, “half” implies “incomplete” “half-way” and other unfulfilled notions. What is more disconcerting is that the person who is usually called a “half” subconsciously and actually begins to think that s/he is NOT ‘as full a person’ as others.

In my experience, nothing can be further from the truth. Since many halfs are in contact with two (or even more) cultures, their experiences, I’d rather say, are arguably richer than the ordinary monocultural person: Many of us can speak more than one language, move in and out of multiple cultures, shift our mental gears to different cultural worlds, act as bridges between diverse worlds, appreciate and accept diversity readily, etc. If that is the case, how can we be called “half” (in the “incomplete” sense)? Instead of “half” shouldn’t we be renamed to “double,” or even “triple” or “multi”? Just a thought …